Ask HN: Should a CTO be expected to be the last out of the office?

7 points by vajrapani666 11 years ago | 7 comments

I recently took a position as CTO at a seed stage startup. Having been in an administrative position before where I had worked 50-60+ hours a week for years, I've ascribed heavily to the philosophy of working smarter not harder. Ideals like "Work life balance", and "agile principles about sustainable development". I recently had a discussion with one of my peers at work and he remarked that he has never been at a company where the CTO was in the office less than the average engineer. He also felt that its nearly impossible to wear a manager hat and a maker hat at the same time in under 40 hours a week, quoting Paul Graham's maker/manager schedule. He mentioned people at AirBnB and Square, Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburg were all those who worked many long hours.

I feel extremely divided about this. I worked around 40 hours a week and feel like I'm taking away from my personal life and might even be nearing burnout at half the duration this particular peer is working. Measuring productivity on duration is silly to me, and I'd rather ascribe to the model of work where what counts most is prioritization and output. I realize there are major deadlines 2-3 times a year which may require sudden bursts of focus and attention, but that's why I would push back and reduce the time I work weekly the rest of the year.

What is the appropriate level of work/life balance expectation for a CTO for different stage startups (pre-seed, series-a, series-b, post-acquisition) and how does that differ from the expectations on the people that a CTO might manage?

Is my position on work-life balance tenable? Are there examples of successful startup founders who worked smart as opposed to long hours? Did I just land in a particular culture that is incompatible with my orientation towards productivity?

otoburb 11 years ago |

I hope you have the courage and conviction to stay true to your principles and see them through. Hopefully your startup peers (or at least the CEO) brought you on board for not just your technical expertise, but your leadership and management style.

Being a leader means implementing policies in good faith while trying to tweak them to the specific startup's culture.

Max Schireson (ex-CEO of MongoDB) recently stepped down for precisely this reason. He wrote a great blog post about attempting to manage the balance between work and family responsibilities that you may find helpful.

http://maxschireson.com/2014/08/05/1137/

ablerman 11 years ago |

It sounds like your peers level of commitment is not inline with yours. This can turn into a pretty significant problem.

IMO, one of the roles of an early stage leader is to set an example for the work ethic expected. Those long hours aren't sustainable forever, so when it's time to throttle back, it's the leaders job to set that expectation as well.

For us that has generally meant that the leaders needed to take time off and also encourage others to do so.

MalcolmDiggs 11 years ago |

I don't think a CTO is expected to work at a burnout pace, but I do think they set the tone for the rest of the engineering team. That is, I would expect a lower-level engineer to see your pace and do ~maybe~ 75% of it. So in effect, yes, I think you'll often be the last person in the office, because others will pace off of you.

otoburb 11 years ago | |

If the OP has specific examples of working smarter vs. harder, one hopes this can be demonstrated through concrete examples and coaching for exactly the reason that "others will pace of you."

If the OP cannot demonstrate this to his team, then unfortunately it will be an uphill battle attempting to maintain any semblance of work-life balance in this instance if the culture already demands 50-60+ hrs per week.

MalcolmDiggs 11 years ago | | |

I'd agree with that, and I hope he can demonstrate that to the team. I wish it was the other way around really. I wish entry-level folks (fresh out of college, tons of energy, no responsibilities at home) would naturally try to outdo / outpace the senior people to prove their worth, but alas I haven't seen that happen much.

But one other consideration: as a c-suite executive, nobody else in your department really has any idea what you do all day. When you leave for a few hours they don't know if you're going to meetings or walking your dog. I've had superiors who left far earlier than me on a regular basis but I never assumed that their day was done; I really had no idea what their calendar looked like, and just assumed that only part of their day was allocated to face-time-with-the-developers.

I think you can use this to your advantage. If you play it right, you can stop working without anybody really knowing it, and most people will assume you work way longer hours than you actually do.

antoinevg 11 years ago |

The CTO _should_ be expected to be the last out of the office.

At 5pm on Monday through Friday.

God help her/him if s/he's there on weekends.

kjs3 11 years ago |

A CTO (and any other C-level) should be measured on delivering results, not on schedule. If they can deliver in 30 hours, fine. If they need 60, so be it, but maybe they aren't cut out for being a C-level. I've carried a CTO bag a couple of times in my career, and if I'm working 60+ hours week in and week out, I'm certainly questioning how I'm doing my job. It usually means I'm not delegating correctly.